


Too Scared To Live, Too Scared To Die

by TheMipstaz



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Depression, F/M, Future Fic, M/M, Minor Character Death, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide, Suicide Attempt, and everyone is sad/depressed sorry not sorry, ok so a lot of people die, the sterek is very minimal i'm trying to add more
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-16
Updated: 2015-07-15
Packaged: 2018-04-04 15:56:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4143720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheMipstaz/pseuds/TheMipstaz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two people on a rooftop wishing to fly,<br/>Too scared to live, too scared to die.</p><p>Or, the one in which Derek thinks he just wants to be left alone, but he actually doesn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Lydia and Stiles

**Author's Note:**

> Soooo, this is a very sad and probably trigger-y fic. There's lots of talk about suicide in a blatant, nonchalant manner. So if that is not your cup of tea, please don't read this thanks. And this is in no way a good way to deal w/suicidal thoughts, so please reach out to someone who loves you for professional help, okay loves?
> 
> There's also lots of minor deaths, so if you want to know who dies in advance, go to the bottom notes.
> 
> Anyways, who watched Birdman? Fucking weird movie, right? So the scene where Emma Stone is on the rooftop smoking is what I was thinking of while writing this. Just picture that for Derek's rooftop. 
> 
> Come say hi on [Tumblr](http://nevergooutofstiles.tumblr.com)!
> 
> "We all change. When you think about it, we're all different people all through out lives. And that's okay. That's good. You've got to keep moving so long as you remember all the people that you used to be." [x](http://11-alpha-runner-24.tumblr.com/post/113040708155/i-will-not-forget-one-line-of-this-not-one-day-i)

See, the thing was that Derek had seen a lot of people come and go. Sometimes, there were tears and funerals and all that bothersome shit. He still remembers the January of two years ago when he couldn’t come for weeks as the police scoured the place head to toe, searching in vain for evidence of a murder that never happened. Unless you considered the girl—Sally, he thinks her name was Sally—jumping off and going splat on the sidewalk murder.

Most people didn’t.

Sometimes, nothing changed at all. Derek remembered the guy—Jason, or was it John?—grinning against his mouth as they kissed, hard and desperate, and muttering, “Tomorrow. I’ll do it tomorrow.”

Derek never saw Jack again.

Derek even remembers when he saw no one, when the rooftop was his alone. Not that he has anything against sharing, but when he wants to be alone to contemplate death, he doesn't exactly want to socialize either. And that seems to be the memo that this new guy just doesn't fucking get.

Derek hadn’t thought much when, a couple nights ago, he had been interrupted in his midnight musings by a soft, “Hey, Lydia told me I might find you here.” He hadn’t thought much when he’d glanced over to see a lanky, if admittedly attractive, guy swing his legs over the edge of the brick roof and settle beside Derek. He's all long limbs and slender fingers, idly tapping his heels against the edge of the building like he wasn’t easily forty feet above the ground.

Derek had just nodded and went back to slowly puffing on his cigarette. The nicotine helped him think even if the smoke made his nose wrinkle in distaste.

He could still recall both Lydia’s fiery hair and the utter lack of fire in her eyes. She looked like someone who had once held the world in the palm of her hand. But at the same time Derek couldn’t help but notice how she also seemed burnt out, done. He had liked her, and he liked to think she had liked it him back.

“She died, you know,” Stiles said, almost conversationally. “Two weeks ago, I think?” Derek said nothing, waiting for the pang of grief that everyone said came with death. He was left waiting. “She talked about you a lot. Well, maybe not a lot. But she mentioned you. Said you were here before her and would probably be there long after.” Stiles had been unabashedly staring at Derek the whole time, not even pretending to gaze at the sea of city lights spread out before them from their vantage point. He tilted his head. “She said you were the saddest person she’s ever met.”

Derek just breathed out a cloud of grey smoke, and Stiles left it at that.

When the sun rose and painted the roof a seeping myriad of red and purple, it was empty.


	2. Isaac

It took another week before someone showed up who was worth remembering. Did that make Derek a bad person that he didn’t remember every suicidal person he met? Was he a terrible human being for not being able to reel off the name of every lost soul who he’d met on the roof? If so, then Derek Hale was a fucking despicable person.

Not that he didn’t already know that.

But he happened to be a fucking despicable person who had met someone named Isaac Lahey. Isaac’s story wasn’t what made him memorable. Hell, Derek had probably talked to more people who had been abused by someone they trusted than not. (What could he say, he wasn’t a sociable guy during the day and a metric shit ton of people came to his roof. He was bound to meet abused people.) Spent your childhood being thrown in a freezer and beaten within an inch of your life by your father? Derek had already heard that story. Next?

It had been a long time since someone’s sob story shocked any sort of reaction out of Derek. But, sometimes, he couldn’t help but wonder if some people didn’t prefer that. Yes, there were those who needed empathic counselors to reassure them with cliche platitudes, but those weren’t the sorts that find themselves on the roof of an abandoned apartment building at ass o’clock in the night. Or was it morning yet?

Sometimes Derek liked to think that his quiet solitude was all people needed when they inevitably poured out their life story. He figured that was probably not true considering how many people had thrown themselves to their deaths before his very eyes.

“You don’t talk much, huh?” Isaac asked wryly as he eventually ran out of expletives that he claimed accurately described his father. Derek didn’t doubt him.

Derek just shrugged, eyes fixed on the twinkling ocean of city lights. The sight wavered as he exhaled his smoke slowly, watched it dissipate into the air.

“I don’t know,” Isaac continued after a while, peering down and squinting through the dark to make out the grey sidewalk below. “I mean, there are days when I just want to end it, you know? Leave for good. But then, when I somehow make it through, I find myself waking up the next glad I didn’t.

“But mostly, I think I’m too fucking scared. I been afraid my whole life. Of my dad. Of not being as good as Camden.” Derek didn’t bother asking who the hell Camden was. “Of screwing up my whole life. And now,” Isaac barked out a harsh and humorless laugh, “I’m too scared to kill myself to stop the fear, to stop feeling like shit everyday.”

“I’m not going to promise it gets better,” Derek said finally, dropping the butt of his cigarette over the edge. The cherry red light flared in the dark before winking out as it fell four stories. “I’m not going to tell you all the bullshit you’ve probably heard a thousand times. But I also think, just this once, it might not be so bad being scared.”

Derek ran a hand through his hair as he searched for the words. Talking had never been his strong suit, but something made him want to try just this once. “If it keeps you breathing for one more day, one more hour, one more minute. If it keeps your heart beating even when you feel like dying. Then yeah, it’s okay to be scared.”

“I guess.” Isaac didn’t sound convinced, but that wasn’t really any of Derek’s business. It wasn’t his job to save every sad John Doe losing an internal war.

“But you should really consider professional help instead of a random guy you met on the roof of a building you were thinking of jumping from.”

Isaac laughed in earnest this time. It sounded macabre all the same.  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Derek never saw Isaac again. He hoped that was a good thing.


	3. Erica

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm just kind of writing whatever. There's not really any plot to this, if I'm being honest. But thanks for reading!

“Huh. I wasn’t sure if you’d still be here. Stiles thinks you’re the shit, but I figured you’d have offed yourself by now.”

Derek was starting to miss the nights that were all his own. But he humored his newest companion anyways. “What the hell is a Stiles?”

The blond girl barked out a laugh. “God, it’ll kill him that you don’t remember him. Pale, kind of scrawny, although not as skinny as he was in high school, lots of freckles and moles just all over the place. Ring any bells?”

Unwilling to admit that Stiles’ sharp amber eyes and cupid’s bow pink lips popped into his head almost immediately, Derek just scowled. “No.” And he silently retorted in the safety of his own head that Stiles’ shoulders were nearly as broad as Derek’s own, so this lady could just fuck off to wherever she came from. Scrawny, his ass.

She laughed harder, white teeth gleaming. “Well, I hope you remember me. I’m Erica, Erica Reyes.”

“Derek Hale,” he grunted because, contrary to popular belief, he wasn’t raised by actual wolves and Talia would’ve been rolling in her grave if her son forgot his manners. Nevermind that he sat on a roof every other night to wonder if this night would be the one where he found some semblance of courage to take the fall.

“So, Derek,” Erica gracefully swung her feet over the edge of the roof to plop down beside him, “what’s a guy like you doing in a place like this?” She drummed her heels on the side of the building as a soft breeze ruffled her blonde curls. The predatory glint of her blood red lipstick and elegant winging eyeliner had him wanting to inch away. Her hungry, appraising gaze made his skin crawl. 

Derek knew what he looks like, okay? But that didn't mean he had to like it. Maybe if his jaw wasn’t so sharp, if his eyes were a little duller, he’d be able to spend every night with his family instead of a bunch of suicidal strangers.

“What,” he deadpanned, “does suicidal have a type now? Guess I didn’t get the memo. Let me just go turn my whole life around, find a wife and 2.5 kids, and pretend like I don’t want to die every day. Sorry for the inconvenience.”

“Not what I meant, asshole,” she grumbled, halfheartedly punching him in the shoulder.

Derek’s chest twinged uncomfortably. Cora used to do that enough that he knew an apology from an inherently prideful person when he saw one. For his baby sister, it had always been like pulling teeth, but that didn’t make it any less meaningful. It might not have seemed like the most sincere _I’m sorry_ in the world, but he knew how much depth it actually held coming from someone like Erica—someone who hated to be corrected. “It’s okay.” He managed a slight smile. “Even if it did sort of sound like a come on.”

She chuckled, running a hand through thick locks bathed silver in the moonlight. “Please, if I was gonna hit in you, you would know. And you wouldn’t be able to resist.” She winked at him, mile long eyelashes fluttering.

Derek’s stomach swooped uncomfortably again, but he brushed it off. “Whatever you say.”

“Bat for the other team?” she guessed, scrunching her nose as she pondered. “Or no team? That’s a thing now, you know, asexuality. Kinda neat if you ask me.”

“Know a lot about it?” Derek deflected, trying to get his pounding heartbeat under control. The cool breeze nipped the damp back of his neck where a bead of sweat slid down below his shirt collar. 

“Considering my best friend is demi, yeah I’d like to say I know a bit.”

The corner of Derek’s mouth curled. “Good for them.” He liked hearing about things like this—about young people finding their place in the world, finding their way even when there was nothing to guide them. After being lost for so long, it made Derek’s heart a little lighter to know not everyone was like him. It made him feel a little better about everything he’d eventually leave.

“And you?” pressed Erica. She tipped her head as she looked at him. “Not that you have to tell me or anything, but if I’m gonna die tonight, it’s not like I’m gonna kiss and tell.”

“If we’re keeping with the baseball metaphor, then I guess I bat for both sides.” Derek paused for a moment. “Leaning more towards men, I think.” It was still hard to force that particular confession out of his tight throat, so he hastily changed the subject. “So you’re gonna jump? What about your best friend? How will they feel?”

“Boyd will be sad,” she shrugged. Her voice was nonchalant, but forced. After having done the very same thing himself so many times, Derek could tell. She was scared shitless. But then again, who wasn't? “But he’ll get over it. We’ve only known each other for a couple years. He’s lived practically his whole life without me; I think he’ll be okay.”

“If you two are already so close after such a short amount of time, I’m not sure if you’re right,” observed Derek mildly. It'd been a long time since he’d actively tried to talk someone down from jumping. But something about Erica made him think he’d regret it if he didn't try. “Won’t he be lonely?”

Erica didn't say anything for a long time after that.

The night is soft with the hum of the occasional car rattling by underneath their feet and the buzz of telephone wires. Derek didn't mind, enjoyed it if he was being honest.

His fingers itched for a cig, but he was trying to cut back, so he tilted his head back to stargaze instead. Ursa Minor burned bright in the sky, but he couldn't see Ursa Major. His mother used to tell him the ancient Roman myth about Callisto and Arcas, mother and son. Callisto was so beautiful that she caught the eye of Jupiter, but the god's jealous wife Juno turned Callisto into a bear as an act of revenge. Arcas tried to kill the beast, but Jupiter saved Callisto by transforming them both into bears—Ursa Major and Ursa Minor respectively—and tossing them into the sky as constellations.

Tonight, Arcas was lonely without his mother. Derek wondered if he was being punished for nearly murdering his family, even if it was unknowingly. That sounded like the kind of thing that the fates would punish. 

Eventually, he broke the silence. “If you’re going to die tonight, you’re running out of time.” Derek nods toward the milky streaks of dawn staining the horizon. For some reason, they didn't fill him with as much dread as they usually did. 

“I… I don’t think I am,” admitted Erica in a small voice, very unlike the bold and raunchy facade she’d been wearing all night.

Derek nodded, not particularly surprised but quietly pleased all the same. A lot of people found they couldn't go through with their suicide attempt once they actually reached the rooftop, himself included. Someday, he might overcome that fear. That day was not today.

“Thank you.” Erica’s hand found his and squeezed it. Her neat acrylic nails glinted in the morning light.

“You’re welcome,” he replied automatically. He didn’t really do much, but if it made her feel better, he’d play along. People tended to like that.

“Goodbye, Derek. I hope I see you again.”

“Maybe in better circumstances?” he suggested wryly.

She grinned, eyes brighter than he remembered from when they first met. “Yeah. Definitely.” 


	4. Boyd

“You saved her, you know. I don’t know how I can thank you enough.”

Derek didn’t say anything, but he wondered what happened to his old, quiet life. He used to go weeks between seeing people. Now, it seemed like he hardly had five minutes of blissful peace. When he thought about it, he decided it must’ve vanished along with that boy with the strange name.

“I didn’t know she…felt like that.”

“Suicidal.”

The man stiffened at the word, dark eyes glancing nervously at Derek’s face.

“The word you’re looking for is suicidal. It’s not a slur or anything; you’re not going to offend me by saying it.” I’m not going to break just by hearing it. Derek sighed. The fact that he couldn’t remember that kid’s name bothered him for a reason he couldn’t put his finger on. He knew Erica told him and it was going to continue to bug him like an itch he couldn’t quite reach. Fuck.  

“I… yeah.” The man nervously ran a hand over his close shaven head. He’s a big African American guy, a little over six feet and bulky with muscle, but somehow he looked small when the shadowy night caressed his equally dark skin. “I had no idea she was suicidal.” He still whispered it like it was the worst curse word he knew, but Derek figured it was the best he was going to get.

“Your kind usually doesn’t.” Derek knew that those who weren’t like him would never understand, and that was probably for the best.

“My kind?”

“Your kind,” repeated Derek firmly. He wasn’t afraid of the distinction even if others were. “Healthy, normal, not suicidal. Whatever the hell you call yourselves. You’re usually the last to find out.”

“It’s not like it’s my fault,” the man snapped. “How was I supposed to know that–”  
“You’re her best friend,” growled Derek, temper boiling just beneath his skin. He remembered Erica’s spunky, give ‘em hell attitude and bit out, “You should’ve known.”

“I know.” The words were punched out of the man—Boyd, Derek remembered idly. His name was Boyd. “I _know_. I let her down.”

“You didn’t.” Derek tried to keep the contempt out of his voice. He didn’t think much of this Boyd character, but that could’ve just been the unwarranted flare of protectiveness he felt toward Erica. “You couldn’t let her down even if you tried. She adores you. There’s nothing you can do to make her feel anything but love for you. That doesn’t make it right, but that’s how it goes.”

“I…” Boyd drew a weary hand down his face.

“Do you love her back?”

“I think I do.”

Derek frowned. So that wasn’t the resounding confirmation he was hoping for, but he could work with it. “If you’re not sure, stay the fuck away from her.”

Boyd’s face immediately twisted in annoyance, but Derek plowed on, unperturbed. “It’s not fair to either of you to start something you’re not sure you can finish. When you man the hell up and realize what an amazing, beautiful, loyal person she is, then go buy some flowers, make a reservation at a nice restaurant or whatever, and talk to her. But not a moment sooner.”

Boyd nodded slowly, looking at Derek strangely. “Who are you? Erica never mentioned your name.”

“If I said her mentally ill wingman, would you take that as an answer?” asked Derek sardonically. There was really nothing funny about anything—don’t joke about mental illnesses, kids—but his mouth quirked up just a little anyways.

Boyd grinned, all bright teeth and crinkled eyes. Derek couldn’t help but idly wonder what kind of toothpaste he used that made his smile whiter than a polar bear’s ass. “I can see why Stiles liked you.”

“I can’t,” Derek replied honestly with a shrug as he silently chanted to himself, _Stiles, Stiles, Stiles_. He wouldn’t forget that name again.

**Author's Note:**

> Lydia dies and Stiles mentions her death in passing.


End file.
